Bus Bombing in Pakistan Kills at Least 17 Government Employees

Rescue workers investigated the wreckage of a bus that was destroyed in a bomb blast on Friday in Peshawar, Pakistan.

Mohammad Sajjad / Associated Press

By ISMAIL KHAN

September 27, 2013

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A bomb exploded on a crowded bus carrying government officials north of Peshawar on Friday, killing 17 people and wounding more than 40 in the second major attack in or near the northwestern Pakistani city in a week.

The bus, carrying employees of the Peshawar Civil Secretariat, was passing through Charsadda district, 10 miles north of the city, said the city commissioner, Sahibzada Mohammad Anis.

Most of those killed were sitting near the back of the bus, where the explosion occurred, or on top of it, a local police official said. “The bus was packed to its capacity and people were sitting on the roof,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with the media.

Mr. Anis, the city commissioner, said the explosion appeared to have been caused by either a magnetic bomb or a device that had been placed inside the bus.

Rescue workers inspected the wreckage of a bus involved in a bomb blast on Friday in Peshawar, Pakistan.

Arshad Arbab / European Pressphoto Agency

The bombing came less than a week after a suicide attack on a Christian church in Peshawar killed 85 people, triggering angry street demonstrations by Christians across Pakistan.

A Taliban splinter group claimed responsibility for that attack, saying it was in retaliation for American drone strikes in the nearby tribal belt. It also stoked the political debate about the wisdom of opening peace talks with the Taliban, which Imran Khan, the politician whose party runs Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, where Peshawar is located, has long advocated.

Mr. Khan’s administration is coming under pressure for its failure to prevent recent Taliban attacks in the province, including a jailbreak in which hundreds of prisoners escaped.

“The police do not have the capacity to check everything,” the newly posted provincial police chief, Nasir Durrani, said Friday at the scene of the bombing.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who is in New York, has said that militants must lay down their arms and recognize Pakistan’s Constitution before talks can take place.